Andrew Pollack poses for a portrait at his home in Coral Springs, Fla. on May 8. Since his daughter, Meadow Pollack, was killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting Pollack has become an vocal activist for stricter school safety regulations.(Photo: Olivia Vanni, Naples Daily News)

He worked as a successful real estate agent. He went to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day. Exercising was an important part of his life, something he’d never miss. He went for walks to his favorite coffee shop and trained his Belgian Malinois puppy, Sonny. He went out with friends and family. He went camping.

Pollack had plans to move to Northern California with his wife and buy a ranch in the mountains. His three kids were grown and on their way to making their own lives, after all.

His youngest daughter, Meadow Pollack, was a high school senior planning to attend Lynn University, a private school in Boca Raton.

The 18-year-old was looking forward to celebrating her final high school milestones — prom and graduation. But she never made it.

Meadow was one of 17 students and teachers gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14. She was shot brutally while draping herself over another student trying to protect her. That student also died.

A framed photo of Meadow Pollack and a small piece of artwork sit on the window sill in Andrew Pollack's home in Coral Springs, Fla. on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. (Photo: Olivia Vanni/Naples Daily News)

Editor's note: Out of respect for the student and her family, the Daily News has chosen not to name the student who died with Meadow.

Pollack is experiencing a pain most people can’t fathom — not only the loss of a child, but the loss of a child to a senseless act of violence that many think could have been prevented.

“Part of me died with my kid,” Pollack said recently in his Coral Springs home.

Maybe one day he’ll end up on that ranch in the mountains in Northern California. He certainly would rather be there than in the situation he’s in. But for now, he has work to do.

“I’m not some average person,” Pollack said. “I’m not going to stop now. They killed my kid, and they’re going to be responsible.”

Most recently, Pollack filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Scot Peterson, the former school resource deputy who stood about 30 yards from the building where students and teachers were hunted. Pollack seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.

Also named in the lawsuit are Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the shooting; several behavioral and mental health facilities that previously treated Cruz; the estate of Cruz’s mother; and the Parkland couple with whom Cruz lived at the time of the shooting.

Pollack said Peterson was a coward. He thinks if Peterson had engaged the gunman, he wouldn’t have made it to the third floor of the building where Meadow and others were killed.

Moments before a candlelight vigil in Parkland, Florida, on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, to honor the 17 lives in during a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Dorothy Edwards/Naples Daily News

Pollack has become an advocate for hardening schools with increased safety measures. He lobbied for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which raised the age to buy firearms and requires a three-day waiting period, gives law enforcement authority to seize weapons and ammunition from people who pose a threat to themselves or others, provides funding for additional school resource officers and mental health services, and allows some staffers to carry guns in schools.

He was appointed to a 16-member commission created by the Legislature to look for “system failures” that led to the shooting, analyze law enforcement response and make recommendations to prevent shootings.

“We’re really determined to get to the bottom of what happened,” Pollack said.

During the first meeting, members went over a timeline of the shooting and saw an animation that showed the building where the shooting took place. The shooter was represented by a black dot. Students who were shot were represented by green dots. Pollack said he saw where his daughter was killed and how long she had been hunted.

Andrew Pollack brings out a portrait of his daughter that an artist painted in remembrance her at his home in Coral Springs, Fla. on Tuesday, May 8, 2018. (Photo: Olivia Vanni/Naples Daily News)

Commission members also visited the outside of the freshman building where the shooting took place and saw the path the gunman took when he entered the campus and the building. Pollack expects the next meeting will take place in the coming weeks.

“There’s also video,” Pollack said. “I don't know if I’ll be able to watch it.”

Pollack started the national nonprofit Americans for CLASS, which stand for Children’s Lives and School Safety. The organization focuses on the creation and implementation of an eight-point school safety plan based on recommendations of security experts.

Some of the plans involve securing the perimeter of schools, controlling the flow of people through entrances and exits, improving communication with parents during emergencies, appointing a school safety specialist to each district and providing more mental health services.

The Pollack family also started Meadow’s Movement, an organization dedicated to honoring the shooting victims locally. Pollack also has taken on a project to build a playground and memorial at Betti Stradling Park in Coral Springs for Meadow and the 16 others who died. He said the organization has raised more than $300,000 toward the playground.

Andrew Pollack and Meadow Pollack.(Photo: Andrew Pollack)

This is his life now.

The gun control debate is not one Pollack takes on. He said he likes to focus on issues people can agree on, such as the safety and well-being of their children, and thinks increasing security at schools will do that.

Pollack said he also wants to evaluate school discipline policies and the role those policies could have played in Cruz being able to purchase firearms and carry out the shooting, to which he confessed. He has enlisted the help of Max Eden, an education policy expert with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, to research and analyze those systems.

Pollack’s eyes at times flickered with grief when he talked about his daughter and what happened to her. Sometimes they sparked with fierceness when he talked about his fight.

Meadow was just as fierce as her father.

“She knew what she wanted and how to get it,” Pollack said. “She wasn’t a quitter. She was very humble. She liked to help people.”

The girl Pollack calls his princess certainly knew how to get what she wanted out of her dad. She was a girly girl through and through; she loved shopping, going for manicures and getting her eyebrows done.

She was only just becoming a woman when her life ended. Pollack wanted to walk Meadow down the aisle one day. He wanted to hold the children she brought into the world. He wanted to watch her become the great lawyer he knew she would become.

“I feel this pain of losing my kid every day,” Pollack said. “It’s rough. When someone kills your kid ... I could die. I have no problem with it now.”

Pollack is a grieving father who has taken his anger and turned it toward working so no parent has to suffer the pain he feels. He doesn't sleep much, he said, and hasn't sought therapy or other help.